Tuesday, 23 August 2016

Tokyo Olympics 2020: 10 potential stars of the next Olympics

When the flame was extinguished at the Maracana on Sunday, so ended the Olympic careers of some of the finest sportsmen and women to have lived.

Rio
was our last chance to delight in the talents of sprinter Usain Bolt,
swimmer Michael Phelps, cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins and heptathlete
Jessica Ennis-Hill on the biggest sporting stage of all.
While
British cyclists Laura Trott and Jason Kenny, and American decathlete
Ashton Eaton, among others, are young enough to continue to carry the
torch of Olympic greatness, new stars must come to the fore for Tokyo
2020.
The list is not definitive - and no-one knows what the
future will hold - but here we select 10 athletes who could be the
headline acts in four years' time.

Jon Dibben (Great Britain) - track cycling

With a stunning attack on the final sprint to win gold, Dibben stirred the 8,000-strong crowd during the points race at the World Championships earlier this year.
It was a performance that had team-mate Owain Doull tweeting of his tears.
The
world champion - and European omnium bronze medallist - was also part
of the men's team pursuit that won world silver in London in March.
But
the 22-year-old Team Wiggins rider was not selected for Rio, with Mark
Cavendish - who went on to win omnium silver - preferred.
The
30-year-old Manxman is unlikely to compete in Japan and with Rio also
being Wiggins' Olympic farewell, Tokyo could be Dibben's time.

Lois Toulson (Great Britain) - diving

Rio
2016 saw Britain's 'other' divers come to prominence. Jack Laugher
became the nation's most successful diver in Olympic history with gold
and silver, while Dan Goodfellow ably supported Tom Daley as the pair
won 10m platform synchronised bronze.
Daley is still his sport's
headline act, but the 22-year-old cannot twist and tuck forever and
failed to reach the 10m platform final.
Step forward Toulson, at
16 one of the youngest British athletes competing in Brazil. The
teenager from Huddersfield was accustomed to winning medals in junior
championships and was ranked third in the world, with partner Tonia
Couch, in the women's synchronised 10m prior to the Games.
Toulson
- who will soon receive her GCSE results - and Couch did not finish in
the top three in Brazil, extending Britain's run without a women's
Olympic diving medal to 56 years, but Tokyo could be the city where the
long wait ends.

Ellie Downie (Great Britain) - gymnastics

Many a British gymnast will return home with their reputations
enhanced and names in British sporting history - such as double Olympic
champion Max Whitlock, 16-year-old bronze medallist Amy Tinkler and Nile
Wilson, the high bar Olympic bronze medallist.
It was a record
seven Olympic medals for Britain's gymnasts, but amid the celebrations,
it is easy to forget those who did not win a medal.
Downie, the
first British woman to win an all-around medal at a major gymnastics
championships, described Rio as a "rollercoaster experience".
She
fell on her neck during the qualifying stages and went on to finish
13th in the all-around, but the Nottingham athlete will only be 20 when
the Olympic flame arrives in Japan and, along with Tinkler, could by
then be matching the world's best somersault for somersault.

Andre de Grasse (Canada) - athletics

There
will be no Bolt at the next Olympics to inspire and entertain. While
no-one can replace the greatest track and field athlete who has ever
lived, De Grasse could be the man to dominate men's sprinting once the
nine-time Olympic champion says his final goodbyes to the sport.
The
21-year-old, who only took up athletics seriously four years ago,
recorded personal bests in both the 100m (9.91 seconds) and 200m (19.80
seconds) in Rio. He went on to win three medals - 200m silver, 100m
bronze and sprint relay bronze - to become the first Canadian since 1932
to win three medals at the same Games.
"He has a lot of talent,"
Bolt has said of De Grasse, who himself has made clear his intentions.
"It's a dream come true for me," he said of his Rio spoils. "For next
time around, I just want to upgrade those medals."

Ben Proud (Great Britain) - swimming

It is Adam Peaty, the Olympic champion and world record holder, who will return to Britain as the nation's swimming superstar.
But
in Tokyo, he may have to share the limelight with 21-year-old team-mate
Ben Proud, the man acknowledged as the fastest junior swimmer in
history.
Proud set a new British record of 21.54secs in qualifying
for the 50m freestyle final and went on to finish fourth - 0.19secs
adrift of 35-year-old champion Anthony Ervin.
His performances in
Rio have strengthened many people's belief he could become the world's
fastest swimmer. They enhanced the reputation he gained two years ago in
winning double Commonwealth gold - an achievement that included a
stunning swim to beat South African heavyweights Roland Schoeman and
Chad le Clos to the 50m butterfly title.

Japan - men's rugby sevens

Fiji have dominated men's rugby sevens for decades and it was the Pacific islanders who beat Britain emphatically in the final to become Olympic champions.
But
semi-finalists Japan played their part in the sport's successful
Olympic debut, rocking the old order by beating New Zealand in sevens
for the first time in 17 attempts and rekindling memories of the Brave
Blossoms' sensational victory over South Africa at last year's Rugby
World Cup.
Described as an "outstanding team" by Britain's coach
Simon Amor, Japan's magnificent seven would also have drawn with Britain
but for a missed late conversion by Lomano Lemeki.
Such was the
impact of their success, Japan's players were told to turn off their
phones because of the number of supportive messages they were receiving
from home.
Japan will host the next World Cup in 2019 and, with
the Olympics in Tokyo the following year, both formats of the game could
take hold in the country.

Dina Asher-Smith (Great Britain) - athletics

Asha Philip, Desiree Henry, Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita ran a British record of 41.77 seconds in the women's 4x100m relay"This
is for the entire nation," said Dina Asher-Smith after winning sprint
relay bronze, Britain's first medal in the event since Los Angeles 1984.
Britain's fastest woman will end her first Olympics with a medal and an individual fifth-place finish in the 200m. For a 20-year-old who combines athletics with studying for a history degree, that is no small feat.
Four
years ago, Asher-Smith was a kit carrier at London 2012 and since then
has gone on to become the first British woman to win the European 200m
title, plus the British record holder over 100m and 200m and, in
finishing fifth at last year's World Championships, the fastest teenager
ever over 200m.
She is almost certain to create more history
over the next four years and, who knows, could become the first British
female to win Olympic medals over 100m and 200m since Dorothy Hyman in
1960.

Kanak Jha (US) - table tennis

Tokyo 2020 could be the Games where Kanak Jha - the first American born in the 2000s to qualify for Rio - will come of age.
The
16-year-old has been described as a table tennis prodigy. Even though
he failed to progress in Rio, the youngest male player to compete in his
sport at an Olympics has potential.
"When he was six or seven
years old, he just had that knack," his father Arun has said. As a
junior, this Californian son of Indian parents reached the national
semi-finals of the men's senior tournament.
Can he help break
China's hegemony over the sport? They have won 28 of the 32 gold medals
since table tennis made its Olympic debut in 1988 so it is a tall order,
but any teenager who moves from the US to Sweden to hone his skills is
clearly planning for a big future.

Missy Franklin (US) - swimming

"It's
just one of those things I've been trying to wrap my mind around this
year, what's been going wrong, but I haven't been able to figure it out"
- Missy FranklinIt might seem strange to name a
five-time Olympic champion as a potential headline-maker, but for Missy
Franklin, Tokyo could be the Games where her star is reborn.
The
American cleaned up in the pool in London 2012 when she was just 17,
winning five medals - four of them golds. Yet she did not advance to the
final in either of her individual events in Rio - although she did win
relay gold.
She appears not to have regained form or confidence following a back injury in 2014 and was upstaged in Rio by Katie Ledecky,
her country's new darling in the pool. Franklin described her
performances in Brazil as heart-breaking, but could she become
Phelps-like again in Tokyo? It will be interesting to find out.

Kenzo Shiral (Japan) - gymnastics

Japan
has grown accustomed to dominating men's gymnastics, with Kohei
Uchimura, the two-time all-around Olympic champion, their superstar.
The
27-year-old is a great of his sport, winning 10 world titles as well as
three Olympic golds, but whether he can still dominate in four years'
time and win a record third consecutive all-around gold is open to
question.
The man who could be the heir to Uchimura's throne is
19-year-old Shiral. In 2013, aged 17, he mesmerised on the floor to
become world champion on that apparatus and retained his title in 2015.
He
surprisingly failed to shine on the floor in Rio, with Britain's
Whitlock claiming gold, but that should not rule him out of potentially
vying for Olympic titles on home soil. He did, after all, win team gold
and vault bronze in Brazil.